LITMIR.BIZ

      Who cares to think of autumn leaves in spring?

               When the birds sing,

      And buds are new, and every tree is seen

      Veil’d in a mist of tender gradual green;

         And every bole and bough

      Makes ready for the soft low-brooding wings

      Of nested ones to settle there and prove

               How sweet is love;

      Alas, who then will notice or avow

               Such bygone things?

      For, hath not spring the promise of the year?

               Is she not always dear

      To those who can look forward and forget?

         Her woods do nurse the violet;

      With cowslips fair her fragrant fields are set;

               And freckled butterflies

               Gleam in her gleaming skies;

      And life looks larger, as each lengthening day

      Withdraws the shadow, and drinks up the tear:

      Youth shall be youth for ever; and the gay

      High-hearted summer with her pomps is near.

      Yes; but the soul that meditates and grieves,

            And guards a precious past,

      And feels that neither joy nor loveliness can last —

      To her, the fervid flutter of our Spring

      Is like the warmth of that barbarian hall

      To the scared bird, whose wet and wearied wing

      Shot through it once, and came not back at all.

      Poor shrunken soul! she knows her fate too well;

               Too surely she can tell

      That each most delicate toy her fancy made,

      And she herself, and what she prized and knew,

               And all her loved ones too,

      Shall soon lie low, forgotten and decay’d,

               Like autumn leaves.

      I SEE the small birds fluttering on the trees,

      And know the sweet notes they are softly singing;

      I see the green leaves trembling in the breeze,

      And know the rustling that such breeze is bringing;

      I see the waters rippling as they flow,

      And know the soothing murmur of their noise;

      I see the children in the fire-light’s glow,

      Laughing and playing with their varied toys;

      I see the signs of merriment and mirth;

      I see the music of God’s lovely earth;

      I see the earnest talk of friend with friend,

      And wish my earnest thoughts with theirs could blend;

      But oh! to my deaf ears there comes no sound,

      I live a life of silence most profound.

      Dear heart! what a little time it is, since Francis and I used to walk

      From church in the still June evenings together, busy with loving talk;

      And now he is gone far away over seas, to some strange foreign country, – and I

      Shall never rise from my bed any more, till the day when I come to die.

      I tried not to think of him during the prayers; but when his dear voice I heard

      I fail’d to take part in the hymns, for my heart flutter’d up to my throat like a bird;

      And scarcely a word of the sermon I caught.  I doubt ’twas a grievous sin;

      But ’twas only one poor little hour in the week that I had to be happy in.

      When the blessing was given, and we left the dim aisles for the light of the evening star,

      Though I durst not lift up my eyes from the ground, yet I knew that he was not far;

      And I hurried on, though I fain would have stayed, till I heard his footstep draw near,

      And love rising up in my breast like a flame, cast out every shadow of fear.

      Ah me! ’twas a pleasant pathway home, a pleasant pathway and sweet,

      Ankle deep through the purple clover, breast high ’mid the blossoming wheat:

      I can hear the landrails call through the dew, and the night-jars’ tremulous thrill,

      And the nightingale pouring her passionate song from the hawthorn under the hill.

      One day, when we came to the wicket gate, ’neath the elms, where we used to part,

      His voice began to falter and break as he told me I had his heart;

      And I whisper’d that mine was his; we knew what we felt long ago:

      Six weeks are as long as a lifetime almost when you love each other so.

      So we put up the banns, and were man and wife in the sweet fading time of the year,

      And till Christmas was over and past I knew neither sorrow nor fear.

      It seems like a dream already, a sweet dream vanished and gone;

      So hurried and brief while passing away, so long to look back upon.

      I had only had him three months, and the world lay frozen and dead,

      When the summons came which we feared and hoped, and he sail’d over sea for our bread.

      Ah well! it is fine to be wealthy and grand, and never to need to part;

      But ’tis better to love and be poor, than be rich with an empty heart.

      Though

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